


Friendly Fire

by forthegreatergood



Series: Triple Threat [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Pegging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:58:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1751984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhodey and Pepper have Tony back, but neither one is sure how long they've got him back for.</p><hr/><p>James is giving a tour with a bunch of green airmen the next time he sees Tony.  There’s a mix of joy and dread in his heart.  Tony’s up and walking around and looking as healthy as ever.  But he’s about to blow through his minutes from strangled, barely-coherent, sob-heavy calls from Pepper on account of the fact that Tony won’t go talk to anyone, and Tony won’t leave his lab for days on end, and she had her entire hand in Tony’s chest just days ago because Tony won’t go to a damned doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All characters property of Marvel.
> 
> Not beta-read. Please post any noticed errors in the comments, and they'll get fixed.

James is giving a tour with a bunch of green airmen the next time he sees Tony. There’s a mix of joy and dread in his heart. Tony’s up and walking around and looking as healthy as ever. But he’s about to blow through his minutes from strangled, barely-coherent, sob-heavy calls from Pepper on account of the fact that Tony won’t go talk to anyone, and Tony won’t leave his lab for days on end, and she had her entire hand in Tony’s chest just days ago because Tony won’t go to a damned doctor. The phrase ‘cardiac arrest’ is where he stopped trying to comfort her and just started agreeing that it was fucked up and Tony wasn’t okay and he didn’t know what to do about it either. According to Pepper, Tony has stopped drinking, which is nice to hear, but it sounds like he’s just substituted one crutch for another. Still, James gets a look at him and thinks that it would be easy to miss just from the way he’s strutting around.

Then Tony opens his mouth and starts up with the spring break story, and James suddenly remembers what it feels like to want to strangle him. Tony probably doesn’t even realize how far in the doghouse James is with the Pentagon on account of him. And while nothing happened with Ivan except for the most fun he’s ever had in a karaoke bar--apparently it’s a rule somewhere that you can’t be a Cher impersonator without having a great set of pipes--it wouldn’t take an investigator long to dig up a list of a half-dozen guys he _has_ gone to bed with, with Tony Stark being number one with a bullet. The last thing he needs right now is Tony starting rumors. He gets rid of the tour group and takes a good, long look at Tony.

If he hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t know how bad Tony had looked when they first picked him up out of the sand. Tony’s putting up a good front. His clothes cover up the bulge of the arc reactor, and his face only looks a shade or two too tense instead of the knife-edge he was teetering on before. He looks almost like his old self when he tells James that he’s working on something big.

“I want you to be a part of it.”

James can recognize a peace-offering when he sees one, and he can’t help the smile that lights up his face. He might as well have been making his “give him time, give him space, let me talk to him” pitch to a brick wall on the ride back to base from the press conference. While he hadn’t _exactly_ been barred from talking to Tony, he’d been essentially barred from talking to Tony. Something like this? It would smooth things over, get things a little closer to normal. Tony’s stock would tick back up. Tony would be back to working with a team of engineers instead of walling himself off in his lab. They can probably strong-arm Tony into a doctor’s office before his lungs give out or he electrocutes himself or any of the other nightmare scenarios that keep James and Pepper awake at night can play out.

“This...is not for the military,” Tony says slowly, like he realizes what bubble he’s about to burst. There’s something else there, too, but James can’t pick it out from the foreground of Tony’s sudden hesitance. “It’s different.”

He knows it’s irrational when his mind connects the dots between scuttlebutt that it was blackmarket American weapons that had been used to attack the convoy, and Tony working on something big that’s not for the military, and the clusterfuck that American mercenary operations have turned into, and the SHIELD agent--and God, has he heard some bad shit about _them_ \--who keeps sniffing around, and the way the MI people were calling him twice a day before he told them he was grounded. Tony may be a lot of things, but he’s not the sort of slime to crawl into bed with people like Aegis and Blackwater, and there’s nothing on the face of the planet that could change that. But James also knows he’s drawing a complete blank about what else it could be, because while he hasn’t worked with that many NGOs, he’s never even _heard_ of one that could afford Stark Industries merchandise and wasn’t crooked as hell. And Tony should know by now that James doesn’t work on things on the sly; he and the Air Force are a package deal.

He sounds too bitter by half even to himself, and there’s an edge in his voice when he asks if Tony’s turned humanitarian now. Tony, on the other hand, sounds serious when he starts to argue, and there are alarm bells going off in the back of James’s head that he doesn’t want to be hearing.

“What you need is time to get your mind right,” he says firmly. Whatever is going on in Tony’s head right now, it’s a reaction to trauma and stress and anger, and once he’s started to put himself back together, they’re going to pretend this whole conversation never happened.

Tony gives him the sort of smile that he usually reserves for people who are trying to fuck him over, and James reminds himself of the shrapnel in Tony’s chest and the ruin he escaped from. Whatever the fuck is going on, Tony will sort himself out. He just needs time. Time, and a minimal number of opportunities to hurt himself.

“It’s nice seeing you, Tony,” he says, cutting it short. He’s not going to give Tony a chance to say anything else he’ll regret later, and he’s not going to give himself that chance, either.

He turns around and walks away, and it feels exactly like it did when he was evacuated from the battlefield before Tony was accounted for. He stiffens his spine and tells himself that it might hurt like hell, but it’s for the best. His stomach is clenched up like he just stepped out into empty space, and he can’t shake the conviction that Tony’s digging himself deeper into a hole. He doesn’t trust himself to continue the conversation right now. He’ll see Pepper later, talk to her about it. It’ll break their unspoken rule that they don’t discuss Tony during their booty-calls, but he’s got a very bad feeling about this whole thing, and the people who’d be interested in this have a habit of tapping phones.

*****

James is on his second beer when he gets a text from Pepper. He’d had an appointment to get chewed out properly by a full-bird colonel before the tour was even finished. Tony’s visit had raised hopes that nobody particularly liked him dashing, but there wasn’t a good way to spin their conversation. Tony doesn’t want to work with the military. James is not going to be able to talk him back into it. He suspects it’s going to be a while before they’re talking about anything again. Since his superiors can’t yell at Tony, they yelled at him for a bit instead. He’d hit the bar as soon as he was off and didn’t bother looking at the clock again until his phone chimed. 

He’s looking at it now, and it’s early for her to be wanting him. Still, the text isn’t ambiguous. He has the bartender call him a cab and texts her back. He needs to talk to her anyway. Tonight’s maybe sooner than he wanted to do it, but it’s not necessarily a good idea to wait. James finishes his beer and slides out of his seat. He’s always been a bit of a lightweight, but he shakes it off quick once he’s up and moving. He’s got the whole drive to Pepper’s place to figure out what he’s going to tell her, and he does his best to concentrate in the face of the steady drone of the driver’s weirdly specific theories on why the Mets are losing this time.

He needn’t have bothered. The first thing he gets when he walks through the door is her practically vibrating in his arms. She spends the next ten minutes pacing and ranting about the lab and all the materials Tony’s ordering and how hard it is to even get Tony to take meal breaks anymore. The arc reactor gets mentioned at least three times. With what he needs to talk to her about, he’s grateful that he’s not the first one to bring up Tony.

“I had my whole hand in his chest, Rhodey,” she tells him, pointing to a spot on her wrist. “Up to here. And I just--that’s not--” She pushes her hair out of her face. “He won’t even go to a GP. He has a fucking _cylinder_ that I can get my whole fucking _hand_ in sitting in his _chest_ , and he won’t see a doctor.”

“I know,” he says, wrapping her up in a hug. She melts against him and lays her head on his shoulder.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“Me, neither.” James sighs. On the one hand, at least the thing keeping Tony alive is a better model. On the other hand, everything Pepper’s said in the last ten minutes. “He came to see me today.”

“At the base?” she asks. “He didn’t say he was going to. Does he want to start working again? Please tell me he wants to start working again. I mean, real work, not twenty-hour stretches in the lab with just JARVIS and twenty pounds of titanium for company.”

“He said he’s working on something big, and he wants me in on it,” James tells her.

Her face relaxes, and then she catches his expression. “That’s not good news? Why is that not good news?”

“He says it’s not for the military.”

Pepper rubs her forehead and mutters a few choice, unladylike words. She points at the couch. “Sit. I’m opening a bottle of wine. You’re splitting it with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gives her a small smile, and she blushes a little and gets to work with the corkscrew.

“If it’s not for the military, then who’s it for?” she asks, levering the cork out.

“He didn’t say. I can’t imagine.”

She frowns as she pours the wine. It’s her favorite pinot noir--James can recognize the label by now--and she typically keeps that in reserve for Friday nights or special occasions. When she shoves a glass in his hand and settles in next to him, he doesn’t ask what the occasion is.

“Why would he go to you about it if it’s not for the military?” It’s almost a rhetorical question, and he shrugs.

“Look, I don’t know what Tony’s up to, but he seems serious about it,” James says slowly. “And I know he doesn’t just make stuff that blows up, but he’s really, really good at making stuff that does blow up. I…”

Pepper twists around to face him, and he can see she’s worried.

“Maybe be careful about those agents who keep trying to interview him?”

“What exactly do you think he’s doing that he needs to be careful about, Rhodey?” she asks carefully.

“Probably nothing.” He rubs his hand through his hair. “Almost definitely nothing. It’s Tony. You’re going to leave the office next week and find your Prius replaced with a hovercar or something, and I’ll feel like an idiot for worrying. But that pitch of his, with those spooks hanging around…”

“Right.” She leans back against him. “So what do I do? Stall them?”

“Works for Tony, why shouldn’t it work for you?” he chuckles. “Especially since it’s Tony they want to talk to. You’re just the person politely brushing them off and then apologizing when Tony doesn’t show up to the appointment they never confirmed.”

She shakes her head and slides her hand up his thigh, and he loops his arm around her shoulders. She feels comfortable against his side, and the wine tastes good on his tongue, and the way she bridled at the suggestion that Tony was up to something reassures him. She sees Tony every day. She’s had her hand halfway through his chest. She’d know if he was up to something that could get him snatched out of his bed by a bunch of black-ops agents. He kisses her hair, and she lets her hand wander a little higher. By the time they’re finishing their second glass, they’re both half-naked and almost ready to go. Pepper’s smiling down at him from where she’s straddling his lap, and he’s grinning up at her and cupping her breasts. She looks like she can’t remember the arc reactor incident, and he feels like he’s never heard the phrase “recalcitrant contractor” from someone who can have him reassigned to McMurdo.

When she takes him by the hand and leads him to the bedroom, it occurs to him that they’ve become a refuge for each other in more than one way. Pepper looks back at him, flushes a bit, and chews her lip.

“I was thinking of something a little bit...different tonight,” she confesses. “If you’re up for it.”

“How different?” James finishes unbuttoning her blouse, and she unzips his pants. They’re practiced now, familiar with each other’s bodies, and he knows when he runs his fingertips down her back and squeezes her ass, she’ll blush hot and get a little wetter than she was before. She knows that if she tweaks his nipples and rubs against him, he’ll be past half-mast before she even looks at his cock.

“I, um, have a strap-on. And I really was hoping you might be interested.”

“In…?”

“Getting pegged,” Pepper blurts, and her cheeks are scarlet now.

It’s not something they’ve done before--it’s not something that he’s done with anyone in a while--but anal’s not exactly something he’s averse to, either. He just hasn’t really been asked in a very, very long time.

“How bad do you want to do this?” he asks, trailing his hands over her hips.

“Really, really bad.” She rolls his balls in her hand and sucks at his nipples. Her eyes are going dark, and her blush is fading a little now that he hasn’t rejected the idea outright.

“Then let’s try it and see.”

The smile she gives him is bright enough to blind him, and he kisses her tenderly.

“Have you done this sort of thing before?” she asks, turning to sort through one of her dresser drawers.

“Not with a girl,” he says, his smile going sly, and her lips twist a little. “You?”

“Not, um, recently.” The blush comes back full force, and he thinks ‘really, really bad’ might have been an understatement. There’s a look in her eyes like she already knows exactly what he’s going to sound like when she makes him come from this and she can hardly wait to hear it.

When she holds up a dildo in silent question, he nods. “Sure.”

It’s actually a little on the small side, but given how long he’s gone without this sort of play, he’d rather err on the side of caution than have to stop before they’ve even really gotten started and swap it out for another. Pepper strips down in record time and chews her lip a little as she watches him undress, and he lets himself have a moment to just enjoy the hunger on her face as he takes off the rest of his clothes. It’s rare for them to skip the foreplay; she loves making a mess of him almost as much as he loves making a mess of her. But she’s in a hurry tonight, and once she gets dildo seated and the harness buckled on, he takes a long, close look at her and finds that he’s in a pretty big hurry, too. There’s something about seeing Pepper, with her slender frame and her graceful curves and her delicate breasts and her Toledo-steel bearing, standing there with a hard-on that pushes every button he’s got. He gives her a wicked look and gets on his knees in front of her, and she actually gasps a little when he takes the tip of the phallus into his mouth.

“Oh my god,” she breathes, staring down at him like the world’s suddenly shrunk to the point of just his mouth on the slim blue cock buckled around her hips. Her nipples are as hard as he’s ever seen them, and she’s already so wet that James can smell her--and fuck, but he wants to taste her so bad his mouth is watering. When he reaches out, takes her hand, and guides it to the back of his head, she makes a little keening sound in the back of her throat. He’s glad then that they went with the smaller dildo, because it slides into his mouth and almost to his throat with no effort at all. Pepper’s thrusting is slow and gentle, and her hands are loose on his head, almost cradling, and her eyes are wide and dark as she watches him suck her. James can feel her ass and hips--she’s small, but she’s strong, and he’s looking forward to _that_ once they get going--flexing under his hands, and his cock is leaking and slick. The harness lets the dildo ride low enough that its flared base can press on her clit if she gets the angle right, and he thinks it might only take a stiff breeze to set them both off like a pair of rockets, and it only takes a few minutes before she swallows hard and points to the bed.

He pulls off and grins at her, and she suddenly laughs and covers her face. He gets to his feet, pulls her close, and kisses her knuckles.

“This was a good idea,” he says thickly. She snorts and looks him over, then licks her lips when she sees how hard he is. “How do you want me?”

“Hands and knees,” she tells him, and her voice is almost as rough as his. 

She rolls a condom over the dildo and fusses with the lube while James makes himself comfortable. He hears the snap of a glove and thinks that Pepper being so damn thorough about everything is the reason he can agree to things like this without really thinking about them beyond whether or not he wants it. If she’s asking, she knows she wants it and she’s as prepared for a yes as she is for a no. The mattress shifts under his shins when she kneels behind him and nudges his thighs apart, and then there’s her hand on his ass and a gentle pressure at his entrance. She strokes and teases for what seems like an eternity, slicking him generously and letting him relax.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he manages, and he barely recognizes his own voice. He’s beyond ready. He needs it, and his cock throbs when she slides in the first finger. She gives him a second to adjust and kneads his hip, distracting him, until he relaxes around her. He groans when she slips out of him and then back in a few times, adding more lube with each stroke. He feels almost too slick by the time she thinks he’s ready for another, and he’s panting with need by the time she’s got two fingers deep inside him. When she brushes his prostate, his hands dig into the mattress.

“Can we skip to the next part?” he huffs, and she laughs.

“Not a chance.” She adds a third finger, though, and the stretch is beautiful. When she starts working him open, he can feel it with every fiber of his body, and now he’s regretting not asking her to pick a bigger dildo, because he wants her to absolutely fill him up when she slides in for real. After what seems like forever, she pulls back, and after a few seconds he hears the promising sound of her taking off the glove.

When she straightens up and spreads his knees a little more, both hands curl around his hips. James swallows when something blunt settles against his hole, pressing into the muscle ever so slightly.

“Good?” she asks.

“So good,” he sighs. He can imagine her smile at that, and then she’s pushing into him and every other thought is obliterated by it as she just keeps going, penetrating to the hilt in one smooth, relentless, almost agonizingly slow thrust. Her thumbs trace gentle, comforting circles on the back of his hips. He’s panting by the time her hips are resting against his ass, and it’s not from any stretch or fullness. It’s purely the fact that it’s _her_ doing this to him, and it’s got him so wound up that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stand it when she pulls out.

“Still good?” Her voice is thick, and her hands are tight on his waist, and his cock is so hard it hurts.

“This was a _really_ good idea,” he manages, and her fingers squeeze into him tighter.

He moans when she pulls back, but she slides back in almost immediately, with that same glacial slowness that almost undid him the first time. She falls into a careful rhythm, gradually giving him more and speeding up until she’s fucking him in earnest. The friction alone is almost enough to make him come, but then she cants her hips a little and reaches forward to stroke his cock, and suddenly he’s too overwhelmed to do more than just keep breathing. He’s not quite clear on exactly when he comes, but when he starts to think again he’s fallen onto his forearms, Pepper has him by the hips, and he’s clenched so tightly around the toy that it feels big inside him. His whole body is buzzing pleasantly, and he slowly relaxes against her until she slides out of him and eases him down onto the comforter.

James sees that she’s flushed, sweaty, and breathing hard, and she barely unbuckles the harness before she collapses next to him. He trails his fingertips up her thigh.

“You want me to…?”

She swats him away and shakes her head. “Already did. Twice.”

He moves up a little until he can rest his forehead against her shoulder. Pepper’s usually like a plucked bowstring once she’s climaxed, all vibration and energy, and the quickest he’s gotten to try giving her another one is ten minutes out. James is impressed she managed to keep pounding into him through it. He thinks maybe they should strip the blanket off so they don’t have to sleep in a wet spot, but he feels like an unstrung puppet. Pepper doesn’t look any more inclined than he is to move any time soon. He kisses her, and she reaches up to cup his jaw, then kisses back.

“That was one of the hottest things I have ever done,” she says. Her eyes are drooping, and her voice is soft. He just hums in agreement, because he can’t find the energy to talk. She rolls a little closer, and he meets her halfway. He realizes he’s drifting off too late to do anything other than dimly register that he can’t remember the last time he felt this peaceful.


	2. Chapter 2

When Allen sends somebody to drag James out of a meeting, he isn’t expecting the chaos he walks into. Somebody’s just lit up Gulmira and a nearby weapons depot like Christmas, and it wasn’t them. The name pops out at him, and his heart starts beating faster. If Tony was going to do something incredibly stupid, this is where it would start. Allen’s watching him, waiting for an answer, and he puts on a neutral expression and calls Tony.

Tony doesn’t even bother _trying_ to make it convincing when he lies through his teeth. James’s jaw tightens, and Tony hangs up on him. He’s going to kill him. He’s going to tell Pepper to get a good alibi for herself, and he’s going to drive to Malibu, and he’s going to kill him.

When Tony calls back, it’s on his cell, and that throws him. Usually Tony just hits redial when he wants to crow, or cajole, or complain.

When he hears the words “it’s a suit” and “it’s me,” James flashes back to Tony joking about a pilot without a plane and swallows hard. Allen’s watching him again, and he thinks fast. The bogey’s been dealt with, so far as they know. Tony’s grounded. The Raptors will peel off and head back to base, mission accomplished. If they can get Tony home, or he can get himself home, this doesn’t have to blow up any further. And James is definitely, absolutely, positively going to kill him.

Then it all goes to hell, because the bogey’s not down, it’s clinging to the underside of the jet. Before he can get his mouth open, the pilot’s rolling. Time seems to stop when Whiplash One reports that he’s hit, and James is watching a trainwreck in slow motion. He doesn’t think Tony would fire on a friendly, so that means that the jet’s down due to a collision, and the only thing up there apart from Whiplash Two for him to hit is Tony. Allen’s torn between elation when the chute opens and glaring daggers at him because James has the worst poker face on the west coast, and he knows damn well that call on his cell was something he should be passing along. Allen’s not going to say anything here and now, but he damn well doesn’t like it, and he’s got every right not to. That was his pilot that almost wound up smeared all over the terrain, and it’s his plane down in flames. James would be just as pissed if their positions were reversed.

The relief that washes through him when Tony confirms he’s still on the line is tempered by the way Tony doesn’t seem to understand just how close a call this was. Tony wants him to come see what he’s working on, like James won’t have a duty to report once he gets a look at everything. They’ve got plausible deniability right now, but it’s a close thing. If he actually sees anything, it’s going to be his head on a platter when this blows up on them. He doesn’t even bother thinking _if_ this blows up on them. 

When he hangs up, he sees how badly his hands are shaking and tries to get a grip. He’s got a cover-story to throw together and a press conference to call, because like hell anyone else is going to get stuck holding the bag on this one. Even if he didn’t know that this was his mess, because it’s Tony, he was senior officer on the floor. Even if it’s not technically his department, he’s got more experience and more responsibility. He focuses on damage control and short-term goals, and a sort of numbness sets in. He’s on autopilot for a next hour or two, and he thinks he does a passable job of appeasing the press and avoiding the stickier questions. He’s trying not to assess the amount of punishment a pair of F-22s can mete out, and what that would look like applied to a roughly human-sized craft with a human aboard, and he succeeds until the next time he’s alone for more than five minutes.

He’s got a text from Pepper on his phone by the time he’s done with everything, and since it simply says “Call me,” he does. He’s treated to a long, half-panicked tirade about bullet holes, and a trashed lab, and scorch marks, and a suit of armor that won’t come off. She doesn’t calm down until he promises to go check in on Tony, and she says ‘thank you’ a dozen times like there was a choice with all of that rattling around in his ears. She doesn’t know how often Tony’s done this, because the lab might look like a bomb went off in it, but he’s got an entire set-up devoted to suiting up and breaking down, so clearly this isn’t a one-off. She can’t even really tell if he’s all right, because he chased her out before the whole suit had come off. He gets the feeling that what she actually needs, after knowing that Tony doesn’t secretly have a fifty-caliber slug lodged somewhere in his torso, is someone to say that this is real and she’s not losing her mind. It’s something that he could use, too, because of all the things he never, ever expected to hear when Tony called back, the top of the list is that he was personally loaded into a flying battlesuit and running around in fucking Afghanistan blowing up paramilitary caches and shooting terrorists and engaging with fighter jets.

It’s all settling in and locking together now, all the reports and footage and expended ordnance and it was just _Tony_ in a goddamned _suit_ and his hands are shaking again and he is so going to kill him.


	3. Chapter 3

“Change your mind?” Tony smirks.

James swallows, because Tony _looks_ fine, but the knot in his chest won’t go away. It is, in fact, worse now than it was before he walked in the door, and he suddenly feels like he can barely breathe. Pepper wasn’t exaggerating when she said the lab looked like it had been bombed. Pepper was, if anything, softballing it, probably because she’d walked into the whole thing blind and immediately gone into shock. James had the benefit of her warning, and he’d had a chance to catalog every bit of damage before getting to Tony. He thinks the only glass still intact and not in shards all over every flat surface available is the case Pepper stuck Tony’s old arc reactor into, and he doesn’t even know how to think about what would happen if that got damaged. Uncontrolled reaction? Simple shut-down? He should have asked when he had the chance, but he didn’t. Tony could have a ticking fission bomb sitting in his workshop for all he knows about that thing.

The suit’s not in evidence now, or if it is, he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. There’s a goddamned hole in the ceiling that goes clear through to the roof, though, and James can smell cordite and ozone in the air. Maybe if he hadn’t had to trek through the whole mansion looking for Tony, he’d be in a better frame of mind. He did, though, and what he saw was enough to send him straight to the edge.

“Take off your clothes,” he tells him, and Tony’s smirk turns into a smug grin. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He strips off his t-shirt and kicks off his shoes, and he’s stepping out of his jeans when he notices that James isn’t doing the same. “Feeling a little under-dressed here, sour patch.”

James ignores the sudden shadow of uncertainty in Tony’s eyes and focuses on the rest of his body. Tony’s standing like he’s wired and tense and hasn’t been getting enough sleep, and he’s got old bruises by the score and some minor, mostly-healed burns, but the fresh marks seem minimal and superficial. It’s counterintuitive that seeing hard evidence that Tony’s actually, legitimately, honest-to-god _fine_ makes the fire in his lungs turn hotter, but it does. He drags Tony into a tight, fierce embrace.

“I cannot lose you again,” he manages. “I am not going to let that happen.” It feels like he’s got a vise around his chest, and his voice sounds hoarse even in his own ears. 

Tony squirms uncomfortably in his arms and scoffs. “Didn’t even come close.”

“Tony,” he breathes. “ _You got hit by an F-22_. They tried to shoot you down.”

James holds him closer and tries to blink back the tears scalding his eyes. He hasn’t cried since that time he and Pepper bawled all over each other when Tony was still missing, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to break that streak here, now, and like this. His mind’s resolution doesn’t sway his body, though, and in another few seconds tears are spilling hot and thick down his cheeks. It seems to trip something in his ribcage, at least, and he can breathe again. 

Tony reaches up to feel his neck, and his fingers come away wet. He gets his hands up between them and pushes James away, staring at him. A half-second later Tony really registers the tears, and he suddenly looks lost and stricken.

“No. No, no, no,” Tony says softly, almost to himself. He runs his hands over James’s face, trying to dry it, and his expression is wild. When he presses a kiss to James’s lips, it’s hard and desperate. “Rhodey, no. You didn’t. You won’t. I swear, you won’t. Just don’t--”

Whatever Tony was going to say, he gives up on it and mashes his mouth against James’s lips, his hand snaking up to hold the back of his neck. He winds his other arm around James’s waist and pulls him against him roughly. It occurs to James that this is Tony trying to distract him with sex, and he starts to pull back. It’s a shock when Tony won’t let go. He holds on tighter and kisses him harder, and when he finally lets up, James feels light-headed and breathless.

“Don’t go,” Tony whispers. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m okay. Just...don’t go. I can’t watch you walk away again.”

“I’m not,” James tells him. He’s rubbing Tony’s back like Tony’s the one who just broke down crying, not him, and somehow it doesn’t seem ridiculous. “But this is so dangerous, Tony. Tell me we didn’t get you back just to watch you kill yourself.”

Tony chokes on a laugh, and then his mouth is on James’s neck, and James can feel his brain shorting out a little. A rational assessment of the situation tells him that he’s coming off a serious adrenaline rush, and that he’s too emotionally compromised to make a good decision right now, and that he needs to shut this down before he finds an excuse to make a mistake. They can always fuck later if they want, but now is not a good time. He gets his hands between them and gently pushes Tony away.

“I’m getting some really mixed signals here, sugar lips,” Tony manages.

“I’m not going anywhere,” James says, “but you know neither one of us has our head on straight enough for this right now.”

Tony rolls his eyes but folds against him, and James thinks some of the fight’s gone out of him. It’s a relief, because the fight’s gone out of him, too. If Tony starts back up again, he doesn’t think he’s got the heart to turn him down a second time. He guides Tony back toward the bed and lays him down carefully, then climbs up behind him and holds him close. He pulls the blanket over them both, and after a little while Tony’s breathing evens out and deepens. James is too jittery to sleep himself, but the feel of Tony’s back against his chest and the smell of his hair are soothing enough that he thinks he won’t give himself an aneurysm in the next few minutes at least.

He thinks of Pepper, at home and more than likely pacing a hole in her floor by now, and he fires off a few sufficiently vague texts updating her on Tony’s condition. It gets him a hundred and forty characters’ worth of ‘thank you’ immediately, like she’s been waiting to pounce the second her phone chimed, which she probably has. He’s not expecting the one that follows and reads “I love you.”, or the one after that which just says “Stay with him. Please.” He’s also not expecting the way it makes his palms sweat at the same time it makes him feel like he just won the lottery. He doesn’t know what the hell the three of them are even doing anymore, but he knows he means it when he types “I love you, too. I’ll be here.” and hits send.

*****

James blinks awake, ready to go, the second Tony stirs in his arms. It takes another minute before he’s really up to speed on the situation. He assumes they’re in Afghanistan for a few rapid heartbeats, and then he’s thinking back through the clusterfuck of the previous twelve hours and regretting falling asleep in the first place. He probably shouldn’t have gotten in bed with Tony, but he definitely shouldn’t have spent the last few hours passed out next to him.

Tony squirms back against him and sighs, still mostly asleep, and James relaxes a little. He can disentangle himself and call Pepper. They can let Tony get some rest, get some food in him once he wakes up, try to talk him down. James can have his game-face on by then. He misses Tony, and his cock is half-hard from being wrapped around him like this, but...he knows Tony. He knows Tony, and he knows himself. Tony’s got a bad habit of handling rejection--or what feels like rejection--by trying to prove that somebody might not _like_ him, but they still _want_ him. James has never been good at shutting him down when he gets like that, even though he knows exactly what’s happening. He used to tell himself he’d figure it out, but he’s always been an idiot when it comes to Tony and he probably always will be. Right now, though, he just can’t deal with stepping on that landmine. Not when he’s barely keeping himself together as it is.

He carefully puts some space between them, then starts the gentle process of getting his arm out from under Tony’s head without waking him up. He doesn’t realize that he’s failed until Tony rolls over to face him, a lazy grin on his face, and throws his arm over James’s hips.

“Morning.”

James can feel Tony’s eyes flickering over him, fast enough that he almost doesn’t catch it, and then Tony relaxes a little more.

“You’re still kind of over-dressed, don’t you think?” he asks finally, tugging at James’s shirt.

“You got into a fight with a jet,” James reminds him.

“I _won_ a fight with a jet,” Tony says. He scoots closer, and then he’s kissing him, and there’s all the firmness but none of the desperation he had before. James wants so badly to just go with this. 

When Tony’s hand slides up under his t-shirt and Tony’s fingertips skate along his spine, he arches into it and groans a little before he catches himself. Tony seizes on the response and tilts his head, kissing and nipping his way down James’s throat to his shoulder. James’s hand curls tight around a handful of blanket when Tony finds the spot he’s looking for, where the skin is delicate and his breath whispers over James’s back just enough to make him shiver and buck a little but not enough to be genuinely ticklish. He’s completely hard now, and when Tony grinds against him, there’s no hiding it. 

It catches him by surprise when Tony pushes him onto his back and climbs on top of him, kissing him and shoving his shirt up and running his hands over his skin like he can’t get enough. He’s not sure why the gears have slipped like this, and then it hits him that Tony’s not even asking this time, never mind relying on James to make the first real move. It’s ridiculous how much realizing that turns him on, because it’s not like Tony’s ever been passive about things. The way he goes about getting what he’s after can’t even be called coy. But there’s always that lingering worry that it’s not Tony wanting so much as Tony wanting to be wanted, and this? This feels like Tony wanting. James doesn’t bother trying to be quiet when Tony’s tongue brushes over his nipple and his hand rubs at his cock through the denim.

He’s running on fumes, and he’s so tired of trying to be responsible enough for both of them, and he’s missed this, missed _him_. When he lets Tony pull off his shirt and undo his pants, it feels less like things have blown over and more like he’s finally hit the eye of the storm. He can’t bring himself to care; if this is all he gets, he’ll take it.

Tony smiles and looks almost feral when James curls one hand over his hip and pulls him down for another kiss with the other. He tries to go a little slower and take the time to kiss Tony properly, but Tony isn’t having it. He tugs James’s pants off and presses their mouths together like his life depends on it, then snaps the band of his boxer briefs impatiently.

“Come on,” he mutters around sucking at James’s throat. “Don’t hold out on me, Rhodey.”

“Tony.”

“Mmm?”

“I can’t get them off with you sitting on me.”

“Oh.”

Tony rolls to the side, and James slides out of the last of his clothes. Tony’s pushing him back down and climbing back on top of him almost immediately, and James has to brace his hands against Tony’s collarbones and push before there’s enough space between them to talk.

“I’m not going anywhere,” James tells him softly, and Tony shakes his head.

“I know, I just…” Tony breaks off to kiss him again. “I need you, okay? I’ve been needing you.”

James wraps his arms around him and kisses his forehead, and Tony unwinds a little against him. His cock slides against Tony’s belly, and the feel of it sings along his nerves. He’s about to kiss him again when Tony wriggles free and shifts so that he can get a knee in between James’s thighs. He shoves James’s legs apart until he can kneel between them, and James can’t help but feel a little spike of worry at how tense Tony looks. He’s hard and flushed and dripping pre-cum and looking at James like he can’t decide where he wants to start, but there’s still that edge of desperation in his eyes.

Then Tony’s mouth is closing around his cock, and it feels so good that everything melts away but the two of them, right here and right now. When Tony’s fingers brush against the tight ring of muscle at his entrance, he tenses reflexively, and Tony freezes.

He doesn’t move far, just enough to pull off James’s cock and look up at him, and his expression is pleading.

“Can I?” he asks softly. His voice is rough with want, and his eyes are burning a hole right through him. “I know we haven’t before, but, god, I want you so much.”

James hesitates just long enough to see that uncertainty sharpen on Tony’s face. It’s not that he thinks Tony would hurt him. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. But he’s leery of the way that Tony’s personal philosophy of ‘as much as possible, all at once’ can spill into the bedroom, and he remembers the few times Tony’s tried to talk him into fucking him. Tony, too drunk to walk a straight line, pulling James on top of him and asking him to be rough. Tony pouting because the only condom they had was latex, and the lube was petroleum-based. Tony insisting he was stretched enough when James could barely get two fingers in him without making him hiss. It’s not what he wanted for Tony, and it’s not what he wants for himself.

Tony closes his eyes and rests his cheek against James’s hip. “We’ll go slow. I’ll be careful. Just… _please_.”

He reaches down and smoothes Tony’s hair back, and Tony sighs like he’s just got his answer. 

“We can try.”

Tony’s eyes flutter open, dark and beautiful and full of sudden hunger. He gets up and rummages through the nightstand, dumping a couple bottles of lube and a half-dozen packets of condoms over the table. James checks everything before selecting an appropriate combination and sweeping everything else back into the drawer, and that’s Tony’s cue to all but tackle him. His lips are soft and warm and demanding against James’s mouth, and when James curls his hand firmly around Tony’s cock, he’s treated to a long, low moan. Tony shakes him off and retreats back down his body, his tongue running over James’s length before James can register why he suddenly feels so good. Tony sucks and licks like a man on a mission, and James is gasping and panting under him in no time at all. When he feels Tony’s fingers pressing into him, warm and slick and a shade too quick, it’s a welcome counterpoint to the mouth on his cock. He doesn’t want to come this fast.

Tony finds a rhythm after that, adjusting his pace by the feel of James tensing around his fingers. When he slides a third finger in, he follows it up with letting James’s cock nudge down his throat, and James arches off the bed. His orgasm takes him by surprise, and he’s left shivering and breathing hard. Tony’s hand traces his ribs before settling on his hip, and he watches James’s face carefully when he flexes the fingers still buried inside him. James feels the movement ripple through him from the inside and throws his head back. The sensation is indescribable, and when Tony does it again, he moans softly and clutches at Tony’s free arm. He tries to find his voice, tries to say something, but then Tony’s tongue is in his mouth and his fingers are working his prostate.

When Tony pulls his hand away, James curls up, trying to follow. A few long moments later, Tony’s arms are looping behind his knees and spreading him wide, and Tony’s leaning over him and lining himself up properly. When Tony starts to slide into him, it’s overwhelming and just right at the same time, and he pants against Tony’s chest. The arc reactor’s light is soft through his eyelids, and Tony’s lips are against his neck, and it takes him a few times to catch what Tony’s saying.

“We good to go, Rhodey? Talk to me, here. Little bit more? I’m fucking dying, say something, come on, hon. Good, bad, needs more data?”

James’s lips move, but he still can’t manage to get the words out. He settles for wrapping his hands around Tony’s ass and pulling him close, an inch at a time, until he’s up to the hilt. It seems to take forever, and James feels like he’s going to come again by the time he’s got Tony pressed flush up against him. He holds him still until he can hear over his heart beating, his fingers digging hard into Tony’s skin and his arms almost shaking. Tony’s sucking at his throat and sliding his arms under his shoulders and lying heavy on his chest, and it’s all almost enough to blot out the sick lurch of finding out that Tony was back in Afghanistan less than a day ago.

When Tony starts moving, it’s like he’s trying to work James into a frenzy. After a few minutes, James tries to coax him into going a little faster, but Tony ignores it and sticks to a slow, deliberate pace. James needs to stop thinking. He needs to let go for just a little while, to breathe again, to feel like Tony’s not going to disappear on him. It’s not until he’s moaning short and sharp against Tony’s shoulder at every thrust that Tony speeds up and gives him what he’s been looking for.

He slides his hands up the back of James’s thighs, spreads him open even further, and starts thrusting into him with everything he has. His hips snap hard, and James can feel the shock of every thrust, and it’s like he’s melting with it.

He can hear the words spilling out of his mouth--“Please, god, Tony, more, keep going”--but it’s like it’s happening at a distance. Tony’s back is hot as it flexes under his hands, and Tony’s cock is sliding into him like a piston, and Tony’s alive and groaning on top of him, and he can tell by the way pleasure is corkscrewing up along his spine that he’s past the point of stopping. He’s going to come again any second now. His skin is tingling, and his cock is full and over-sensitive, and he’s starting to tense. It seems to catch Tony off guard, though; when James clenches around his cock and cries out, Tony gasps and comes himself.

James lets a wave of contentment wash over him. Tony’s not usually much of one for the afterglow, but he might get lucky this time and have a moment’s peace with him before he’s crawling out of bed and getting himself into trouble again. The arc reactor feels a little warmer than the rest of Tony’s skin, especially now that the sweat’s cooling on Tony’s back. James trails his fingers down Tony’s spine, and he shivers against him before he looks away. Tony doesn’t look him in the eye when he reaches between them, grabs the base of the condom, and slowly pulls out. James groans a little at the loss.

Tony tosses it in the wastebasket and then slots himself back against James, apparently in no hurry to go anywhere this time. James curls his hand in Tony’s hair and brushes a kiss over his forehead, thankful that he’s staying put for a few seconds.

“Not bad for a first time,” he sighs, and Tony snorts.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he murmurs, his voice soft in James’s ear.

“Yeah, well. Knee-walking drunk’s not a great time to try new things,” James tells him. He softens it with a kiss, though, slow and deep with his tongue moving against Tony’s and his fingertips tracing Tony’s hairline across the nape of his neck.

“They don’t call it Dutch courage for nothing,” Tony retorts as soon as he gets his mouth back. He presses his face against James’s neck, hard, and shivers. “Stay. For breakfast, at least. I just--” Tony’s arms tighten around him. “Just stay. I need you.”

James kisses his cheek and holds him even as he agrees, and Tony’s grip doesn’t loosen.


End file.
